


all aboard the smooch express

by glasscamellias



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon, Trains, just in case, rated T for swearing and a little saucy talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 18:51:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13394064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasscamellias/pseuds/glasscamellias
Summary: Taako learns something new about Kravitz and adjusts accordingly.





	all aboard the smooch express

He had been with Kravitz for over a year before he realized one small, blackmail-worthy fact about his boyfriend, and boy was that some egg on his face. Shame on ol’ Taako for not thinking any further about that! It should have been obvious!

See, during that first (second? Evard’s Black Tentacles could have counted as a first) date, when Kravitz had told him about conducting, well. He had taken that as musical conducting, added that with every time Kravitz hummed absently or twitched his fingers in a way that might have included an imaginary baton, and came to the conclusion that he was seducing a music boy, plain and simple. And if Kravitz seemed pleasantly confused when Taako got him orchestra tickets for the classiest goddamn date an undead man had ever gone on, Taako just assumed it was because he was bowled away by how in love he was and how fucking thoughtful the gesture was.

But things started to make less and less sense. He didn’t spend nearly as much time in Kravitz’s abode as he did his own (were they going to co-habitate someday? be Taako & Kravitz, official sexy roomies? _fuck_ ), but from what he saw of his place in the ghostlands, not a single instrument. Which was understandable, didn’t have to play to conduct. Wasn’t that the point of a conductor, that they didn’t play? But when the other two-thirds of the reaper trio started in on music talk, about how they now had free time to pick it up again, Kravitz didn’t have a single thing to say. He made a bunch of polite noises instead of telling them to shut up with how mushy they were getting about duets, but he didn’t sound all that excited.

Things didn’t click into place for ages, not until his magic boy and his skeleton boy started getting closer. Didn’t take long, they were both nerds, and he wasn’t going to admit to anyone that he had been worried they wouldn’t mesh well. Angus wasn’t scared like a normal kid would be, more territorial than anything, but it only took a few meetings before he stopped being afraid for _Taako_ , as if he was planning to kick it anytime soon.

But now they were trading book recommendations and work stories, Angus’s cases and Kravitz’s bounties, and he didn’t have anything to worry about. He had been tuning them out like...80% in favor of crème brûlée, up until Angus got to the Rockport Slayer. So of course he had to chime in, so Ango wouldn’t steal the credit for the whole thing.

Angus picked up on it a lot faster than Taako, and soon descriptions of the fire crab, and Jenkins’s crimes and all that turned into...just talking about the Rockport Limited. Taako was about to tell him off for glazing over the interesting bits for descriptions of the gilding, of all the boring shit Angus could have possibly brought up, not when Taako couldn’t even remember that there had been gilding, but he looked up to see that Kravitz was fucking _starry-eyed_. Couldn’t get enough of Angus describing the route, the sleeper cars, the dining car.

How had it taken this long for him to realize? Kravitz didn’t want to be an orchestral conductor, he wanted to be a train conductor. Like Juicy Wizard, which was a weird and uncomfortable comparison to be making. Now, obviously a life dedicated to trains wouldn’t turn Kravitz to _that_ , hopefully, but still, hard not to be worried.

Thankfully Angus didn’t tell him anything about the train crashing, or how Taako had kind of been responsible for that mess, at the end of the day. They must have replaced it by now, right? That hadn’t been the total end of the train industry for Faerûn, or he would have heard about it, probably.

He needed to get this skeleton a train ticket asap.

-

Luckily, there _was_ a new train to replace the one he had slammed into a greenhouse. Looked almost exactly the same, if a little fancier than before. It was easy to grab two tickets, the expensive platinum kind that he remembered Merle getting for the actual train mission. Not a problem, Taako had gold spilling out the pockets these days, and obviously his main man deserved the luxury train experience. No less than VIP and hopefully without any murders. Taako wouldn’t have _minded_ a show, but it’d stress Kravitz out.

Keeping it a secret was a little more difficult. Kravitz knew all about Rockport after Angus clued him in; was there any reason to visit aside from trains and Bodetts? They hadn’t bothered going back since then because frankly even if they had saved the world, he wasn’t really psyched to see the town’s single (?) occupant again.

 _But_ , it actually turned out that the train went both ways, or rather there were two trains, because the modern age was some sort of fucking miracle that could have two trains at once. And they could even go at the same time without crashing into each other, so maybe he could finally have a non-explosive train experience. There were enough shops in Neverwinter that taking Kravitz there wouldn’t be out of the norm until they got right up to the train station. Plus it was _four hours_ on the train, so Taako needed whatever capitalistic distractions he could find, aside from critiquing the meal service.

The hour or so he had set aside for clothes shopping seemed to throw Kravitz off track, but he was obviously confused when Taako realized the time and shuffled them to checkout, when usually their shopping excursions could last long enough that Lup would come looking for them. (She could have called, but she took glee in interrupting unofficial dates. Plus she had reaper powers now, so she could jump out at them at the most inconvenient moments, like when Taako was trying to shoplift or enact sloppy makeouts with Kravitz in the dressing room.)

Kravitz’s confusion lasted until about five minutes from the train station, though clearly he was getting more and more suspicious as they headed out of the shopping district and in the wrong direction for any restaurants. Suddenly there were taxi wagons and people with luggage, and when Kravitz made a tiny gasp of joy, Taako mentally recorded it for later and didn’t tease him about it.

There were only a few people ahead of them at the ticket counter, so hopefully that meant their train experience wouldn’t be cluttered up with people wanting an autograph from one of the world’s biggest heroes. And he couldn’t blame them usually, but if someone got in the way of Kravitz’s quickly growing joy, well. If he tried to blast someone out a window, they might get banned from using a train again, but he was sure he could think of a less flashy revenge. No better motivation than a sad, hot dead guy.

He slapped down the pair of shimmering VIP tickets. The attendant probably already recognized him, but he tapped on the glass window anyway with a wide grin. “Yeah, two for this train to Rockport, under Taako Taaco and Kravitz. Not gonna check any luggage, so can we get this show rolling?”

After the requisite stuttering about how he was _that_ Taako, and _yes he was definitely keeping his bags on him, he wasn’t going to wait a full hour on the train platform because someone dumped his new blouses into an unopenable cube_ , they were ushered towards the train. He had left his Krebstar at home rather than having to deal with the weapons check, because of course he had a backup wand doubling as a hair stick, and easy as that, there they were on a train. Kravitz even squealed a little as they went up the steps, and the attendant was either too professional or intimidated by Taako’s glaring past Kravitz’s shoulder to say anything.

Luckily, a tour of the train was standard for anyone with a VIP ticket. Or maybe just anyone at all, but hopefully all that gold for platinum tickets was actually worth it. If just _anyone_ got the tour, it’d cheapen the whole thing. Taako didn’t need to hear it a second time, but Kravitz was clinging onto the engineer’s every word as they walked up towards the engine car. More passengers than the first time, but not a lot, and no one that murderous-looking.

Still not allowed into the engineer’s car itself, and he doubted they’d have _another_ train situation that would require breaking in. And he hadn’t prepared any situations himself. Getting that Kravitz was a train fanboy, the engineer did let him peer through the window at the tiny sliver of console visible. It probably helped that Kravitz also asked for the guy’s autograph, which was a little fuckin’ weird but he seemed flattered anyway.

(Also, Kravitz informed him, engineers and conductors were two entirely different things, when Taako had been assuming they were just two names for the same “person who makes the train do the thing.” Apparently Kravitz was excited enough about trains that _anyone_ involved was enough to get him worked up, and since he was always so patient when Taako talked about magic systems, it only seemed fair to try and absorb the endless nuances of all the different roles on a train.)

An attendant—Mariya, elven, much livelier voice than he would have expected and probably not a murderer—led them back to their private sleeper car as the train lurched into movement, listing off the amenities to Kravitz. He was getting more and more jazzed with every minute, asking technical questions that she fumbled to answer, not even remotely in her job description. “Sir, you could contact the company itself on the workings of the Rockport Limited, I’m sure they’d be happy to tell you more, since I really don’t know how this works. Surprisingly they don’t teach you how all the metal bits go choo-choo when you’re just here to carry luggage. I’d ask the engineer for you, but I’d rather not distract him and end up crashed into the side of a mountain, sirs.”

It was too early for the lunch service, so they stopped in the sleeper car, Mariya stowing all of his shopping bags in the luggage compartment before leaving them. Of course, he locked the door behind her and pulled the little curtain over the window; hopefully they could get up to some shenanigans that would need it. It was roomier than last time, as it should have been—he _had_ paid a fuckton of money, what was the point if they didn’t have a decent car with more beds than they needed and a frankly ludicrous amount of pillows, most of which he shoved on the floor as he dragged Kravitz down onto the bed with him.

“How’s it look so far? Meet your deepest, naughtiest train wet dreams? We could try to spring for the Rockport Unlimited next; they say most people don’t live through it, but that’s no problem for you.” Was this good enough? Kravitz had looked happy enough, but Taako couldn’t be sure—

“Taako, this is _amazing._ I could tell you had a surprise planned, but this is so much more than I thought it would be. Miles above even the best model train.” (Did the grim reaper have a bunch of model trains that he stuffed in a closet on Taako’s rare visits to the Astral Plane? Were they _goth_ model trains? Maybe they had little skeleton figurines as passengers.)

“Only the most thoughtful gifts from Taako, right? Of course you love it.” He dragged Kravitz on top of him, pecking kisses against the underside of his jaw. They had time to kill before the lunch service, after all. “...And that appears to be a train boner. Okay, I’m open-minded, I’ll work with it.”

Kravitz laughed and set to unlacing his shirt and kissing him back.

-

Turned out that after the whole murder incident, they nixed the pleasure room thing entirely, and in that corner there was a string quartet playing for the diners. With a flourish, he pulled out a chair for Kravitz. Hopefully all that crystal and gold wasn’t just a smokescreen for shitty food. If there were going to be more train rides in the future, he wasn’t going to tolerate overcooked steaks or a barely stocked seasoning cabinet. That had been one decent trait in Jenkins’s tiny, tiny list of them: that man could _cook_ , and they’d better have replaced him with someone just as good. If he had to, he’d get their chef training, or pull whatever strings to make them hire someone worthy.

The Rockport Limited needed to be the best fucking train in existence, even if he had to make it that way. As one of the waiters rolled a cart over with a bunch of covered trays, Kravitz reached over to the table to squeeze his hand briefly, eyes bright.

The food was so good it was insulting, turned out. Perfectly accommodated his insistence on vegetarian, chill with serving drinks at midday, almost nothing to complain about except that their lunch menu didn't include any dessert and they'd be at Rockport long before dinner. (It was a pretty generic end to a traindate, but maybe they could get ice cream on the way home or something. He was suddenly in the mood for something sappy like sharing a sundae.) Guess that meant there was more free time for Kravitz to talk about trains, and wasn’t _that_ an adorable, endearing tragedy.

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this really quickly to distract myself from not knowing how to write Taako, so maybe a little sloppy and short but in a good way? Also generally I do view Kravitz as a music boy, but this was just too cute of an idea.


End file.
